Holy Great Martyr Theodore the Tyro. Our Father Among the Saints Hermogenes, Patriarch of Moscow

Commemorated February 17

St Theodore, who was from Amasia of Pontus, contested during the reign of Maximian (286-305 AD). He was called Tyro, from the Latin Tyro, because he was a newly enlisted recruit in the army. When it was reported that he was a Christian, he boldly confessed Christ; the ruler, hoping that he would repent, together with other Christians, was required to renounce Christ and to offer sacrifice to idols. He was given time to consider the matter more completely and then give answer. Theodore gave answer by setting fire to the temple of Cybele, the "mother of the gods", and for this, he suffered a martyr's death by fire. His body was buried in the city of Euchaita (in Asia Minor). Later, his relics were translated to Constantinople, to the church named after him; his head is located in Gaeta, Italy.

About 50 years after the death of St Theodore, the Emperor Julian the Apostate (361-363 AD), desiring to defile the Christian Great Lent, ordered the city governor of Constantinople to sprinkle secretly the provisions sold in the markets with blood from sacrifices to idols each day throughout the first week of the Fast. St Theodore appeared in a night vision to Eudoxius, the Archbishop of Constantinople, and ordered him to announce to the Christians that they should not buy the defiled provisions in the markets, but should use boiled wheat with honey as food. In commemoration of this event, the Orthodox Church to this day celebrates the memory of the Great-martyr Theodore the Tyro annually on the first Saturday of Great Lent.

St Hermogenes, Patriarch of Moscow, was born about 1530 AD in Kazan. While yet a layman, he lived as a clerk in the Monastery of the Transfiguration in Kazan. In 1569 AD, St Barsanuphios, Bishop of Tver, fled to Kazan fearing the wrath of Ivan the Terrible. Therefore, Hermogenes became a spiritual son of St Barsanuphios. He was made Priest of the Church of St Nicholas in Kazan, and was a witness of the miracles of the newly appeared icon of our Lady of Kazan. Later he became Abbot of the Monastery of the Transfiguration, and in 1589 was consecrated Metropolitan of Kazan, in which capacity he converted and baptized many pagan Tartars and heterodox.

In late 1604, the so called false Dimitry, a pretender to the Russian throne who claimed to be the son of Ivan the Terrible (who had died in 1584 AD), crossed the Russian border, having the support of the Jesuits and King Sigismund III of Poland, who hoped through Dimitry to force Papism upon the Russian people; a few cities, such as Chernigov, soon surrendered to him. Shaken by these calamities, Tsar Boris Gudonov died suddenly, and in June, 1605, the pretender entered Moscow and took the Russian throne. He then declared his intention to marry a Polish woman without her receiving Baptism in the Orthodox Church; when the authorities and the hierarchy remained silent out of fear, it was Metropolitan Hermogenes alone who fearlessly rebuked him and demanded that she renounce Papism and be baptized according to the rites of Orthodoxy. For this Hermogenes was banished to Kazan. In 1606 AD, Prince Basil Shuisky led the people in the overthrow of Dimitry, and Basil was elected Tsar in Moscow; Hermogenes was made Patriarch of Moscow. The overthrow of Dimitry did not end the endeavours of the Poles to subject Russia to themselves, and in those times of upheavals, treachery, and bloodshed, the valiant Patriarch Hermogenes showed himself to be a great spiritual leader of the people, and the conscience of Orthodox Russia in times of betrayal and terror.

In 1608 AD, King Sigismund succeeded in setting his son upon the Russian throne, and Patriarch Hermogenes again insisted that the new Tsar be baptized in the Orthodox Church, marry an Orthodox Christian, and have no dealings with the Pope. The Poles, together with rebel boyars who supported them, imprisoned Patriarch Hermogenes in an underground chamber of the Chudov Monastery during Holy Week of 1611 AD, where they slowly starved him to death; he gave up his holy soul on February 17, 1612.

In 1653 AD, his holy relics were found incorrupt. In 1812, when Napoleon captured Moscow, the Saint's tomb was desecrated in the search for treasure; when the French withdrew, the Patriarch's holy body was found intact on the floor of the cathedral; in 1883 his holy relics were again found whole. St Hermogenes was glorified on May 12, 1913, and added to the choir of holy Hierarchs of Moscow, whose feast is celebrated on October 5; at the time of his glorification a multitude of miracles were wrought through his incorrupt relics.